The Cold War Swap

got the chance.”

“What do you want to do with him?” Max asked.

Padillo shrugged. “Drag him over in the corner. Somebody will find him sometime.”

Max went through Cooky’s pockets quickly. Then he threw the blanket over him and dragged the body to a corner. It left a smear of blood on the floor. Max got a mop and cleaned it up. Padillo and I watched. Symmes and Burchwood sat quietly on the bed and held hands, their faces white and pinched-looking. Burchwood kept wetting his lips nervously.

Max came back and sat down at the table. He reached for the glass of vodka. “Dirty work,” he commented. “He should have waited until the wall tonight. He’d have had a chance.”

“Probably afraid to,” Padillo said. “He was beginning to crack, and the liquor wasn’t helping. But maybe he just wanted all the way out. He didn’t have to go through that High Noon routine. He could have slipped his gun out when he was sitting at the table.”

“There are a number of ways to commit suicide,” Max said.

“He seems to have tried them all.”

Max was going through the papers that he had taken from Cooky’s body. He passed something over to me. It was the envelope containing the check that I had written for the five thousand dollars. I opened it and handed it over to Padillo. He glanced at it and tore it up. Neither of us had anything to say.

CHAPTER 14

Max got up and put on his coat. “I’d better do some checking,” he said. Padillo sat slumped in his chair, his feet on the table, his eyes half closed. His mouth was in its thin, hard line. He only nodded. “I’ll be back in an hour,” Max said. Padillo nodded again. Max left, closing the door quietly.

Burchwood and Symmes were stretched out on two of the cots. Symmes seemed asleep, but Burchwood lay on his back, his arms folded behind his head. He stared at the ceiling. We waited.

Padillo sighed and swung his feet off the table. “There’s a good chance it may go sour tonight,” he said.

This time I nodded. Then I said, “If anything happens to me, you can have my ties. They were selected with great care.”

“The gold cuff links. They’re yours,” he said.

“You mean the ones with your initials?”

“The same.”

“That’s thoughtful.”

Padillo picked up the vodka bottle and eyed it critically. “We have four more hours to go. We may as well finish this.”

“Why not?” I said, and moved a glass toward him. He poured ex pertly. There was a half-tumbler for each.

“Maybe Max will bring another bottle,” he said.

“And cigarettes. We’re about out.”

“How many do you have?”

I took out my package and counted. “Six.”

Padillo counted his. “Four.”

We drank and lighted cigarettes.

“There’ll be a few odds and ends to clear up if we get over tonight,” I said. “Minor items really—such as Weatherby dead in my room, the Mercedes I rented and wrecked, what happened to Cooky—a few details.”

“You’ve forgotten one,” Padillo said.

“What’s that?”

“I have to get our two friends all the way back to Bonn.”

“You’re right. I’d forgotten. You have a plan, of course.”

“Of course. The wall is a minor problem compared with the zone. First we get them out of Berlin. I’m using the editorial we. We’ll go at night. At the edge of Berlin the first thing we have to cross is a three-mile-wide strip where they ask for a special pass if they find you in it. Then there’s a strip about fifteen hundred feet wide that’s planted in crops—maybe a foot high at the most. Anyway it doesn’t provide any cover. Next there are the watchtowers located on the strip that’s about four hundred and twenty feet wide. That’s what they call the security strip. Every house, tree and shrub has been removed. There’s nothing but the towers. Of course we make that.”

“We’re pretty good, I’d say.”

“We’re perfect. Now comes a nineteen-foot strip that is constantly patrolled. They have dogs—Dobermans. Then there’s a fence that we have to get over—assuming we pull a fast one on the patrol. Now that we’re over the fence we go across eighty feet of land mines. But we’re still lucky. We avoid getting blown up. Then another fence. I seem to recall that it’s electrified. Then there’s another hundred and thirty feet or so of plowed land that will show any footprint. After the plowed land there’s a thirty-three-foot death strip. Anything that moves in it is shot. But once we make that, all we have to do is go over another fifteen-foot fence that is wired to sound a million or so alarms if it’s touched. But we’re clever. We get over that, too—all the time helping our two friends here.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing much. We make our way through a hundred and ten miles of East Germany and repeat the whole process again at the west border.”